Drag Teen by Jeffery Self Review

A fantastic, fabulous, funny YA debut from Jeffery Self, one of the gay icons of the YouTube generation, that follows one high school student on a drag race to his future.

Debut YA author Jeffery Self takes us on a road trip with an insecure high school senior who has one goal: to be the first in his family to leave Clearwater, Florida, and go to college. The problem is, he has zero means of paying for school — until his friends convince him to compete in a drag teen competition for a college scholarship.

When I started Drag Teen I had just finished up Kissing In America by Margot Rabb, so I was on a road-trip-to-win-a-scholarship kick; which is okay with me! I’m always down for a good road trip story, and while Drag Teen is less road trip and more and more self discovery Jeffery Self still delivered everything I was expecting to find in this book.

It’s a great friendship story, as well as a relationship story. The MC had a lot of self-pity in the beginning, and that got a little redundant, but as the story progressed he got better… or I stopped caring, either way it didn’t negatively impact the story enough for me to dislike him. I didn’t love the super fluffy everything-is-rainbows ending, but it was still a decent ending to a great story. It was also an ending, that even though I personally didn’t love, that the story deserved.

It was a very quick and fun read. There was an important message within the words, and I am all about books that make people feel ‘normal’. I know lots of teens will pull something really special out of this book and be able to apply it to their daily lives, and that’s really important! I gave Drag Teen 4 stars, and I know some teens out there are going to love it and give it all the stars!

Bravo to Jeffery Self on his debut YA, and thank you to Scholastic for reaching out to me and providing me with an arc!